The Wolves
by MonstersInside
Summary: Sara is forced to face her demons in the form of the nightmares of the past recurring when Adam Trent is found dead at the Desert State Mental Hospital, and in her relationship with Grissom when an old friend of his revelas themselves to be Adam's therapist and prime suspect in his murder...
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

She walked quietly through the hospital, her deliberately light footsteps still managing to echo pointedly on the sleek linoleum floor.

This was the one part of the night that unsettled her. The screaming patients and the howling winds that whipped up around this place often began almost soothing, familiar, understood. She could deal with the psychotic breaks and the attempted suicides, the arguments that got blown out of all proportion and the little ticks and habits that could be a cause for assault or worse.

The only thing she couldn't handle was the silence.

The all consuming silence that seemed more out of place in this institution than anything else in it. The twisted fantasies and the sick mind games all just seemed a part of this life but when the sun went down and the wolves in Vegas came out on the prowl, a strange and unnatural hush fell over the place and chilled her to the bone.

As Sin City partied into the morning, its sinners sank into dark dreams where they were free to indulge the fantasies that were discouraged in the harsh light of day.

She walked around the corner and placed several files on top of the grim metal cabinet in the corner, jumping as someone said her name,

"Evening Maggie."

"Jesus Kyle..." she sat placing a hand over her heart as she jumped,

"Nope, just Kyle." He smirked, flicking water from his cloth at her, "You needing to be admitted tonight Mags?"

"Funny Kyle, that's very funny." She said, shaking her head and turning to pick up the files she had scattered on the floor after her minor heart attack. "What are you doing?" she asked, turning back to him.

"Ross ripped out his stitches..." he replied ruefully,

"Again?" she sighed.

"Again." He confirmed, rolling his eyes, "Someone needs to invest in buster collars for people."

She rolled her eyes and whacked him playfully with a file as she said, "So, other than the crimson fountain, what else do we have of note tonight?"

"The usual." He shrugged, "Tantrums, tempers and...I forget the last part but you get the gist..." he grinned again and brandished the cloth at her, "Oh, I forgot, you've got another one in seclusion you'll have to check on."

"Wonderful..." she observed drily, throwing the sheets down and heading off to the seclusion room.

Peering in, she was slightly curious as to why the room was bathed in darkness. Slipping the key from the chain around her waist she inserted it in the lock and quietly entered the room.

Her hands fumbled on the wall behind her for the light switch. As they flickered in to life she turned back to look at the strangely lifeless figure on the bed and buried a scream in her hands as she discovered the room had been redecorated in a brilliant scarlet shower...

"Hey Sara, you're with me tonight."

Finn's voice rang out through the lab in such a way that, had there been more than one Sara present they would all have headed for the hills at the sound of the confident blonde's call.

As it was, Sara glanced up with a small smile from the reports she was neglecting at the break room table and raised a hand as way of answer and invitation as Finn marched through the lab's corridors.

While in many ways the two women were polar opposites; Sara, a generally calm, reserved brunette and Finn, the very definition of 'blonde bombshell' they had had nevertheless developed an unlikely friendship in the year or so since Finn had arrived in Vegas.

Sara enjoyed working with the lab's resident blood whisperer and had done since their re-enactment of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre on an unsuspecting house on the first case they had worked together.

As it happened, Finn wasn't all that cut up about spending this shift with Sara either.

"So what are we looking at tonight in Crazy Town?" Sara asked, clearing a space in the carpet of papers that she had spread over the table so Finn could lay out her files.

"Crazy Town." Finn said with an ironic smile, "There has been a murder at the Desert State Mental Hospital out on Canyon Avenue."

Sara's ears pricked up at this but she decided that it hardly warranted her mentioning her own history with the facility.

"What happened?" she asked curiously, absently taking a sip from the coffee cup on the table in front of her and grimaced when she discovered that it was stone cold and had developed a thin skin due to her forgetfulness.

"A patient died while in the 'seclusion room'." Finn said with distaste, flicking through the files as Sara stood to fetch herself a fresh cup of coffee, feeling that she would need it before the night was out, "Apparently they're putting it down to 'complications' with the restraints."

Sara raised an eyebrow at this revelation, pursing her lips before asking, "I thought that was all dealt with internally before asking, "What does this have to do with us?"

"Usually you would be right; but in this case the hospital has already faced previous complaints because of this. If they want to keep babysitting their little pet psychopaths they need an external source to confirm what happened and make an impartial judgement. One of the administrators is a friend of Ecklie's-"

"Ecklie has friends?" Sara broke in, smirking and raising an eyebrow,

"And apparently they exist in high places," Finn said chuckling at this, "He pulled some strings and asked for the lab's best forensic team. According to Ecklie, that's us."

"Oh, I'm honoured." Sara said drily, rolling her eyes, "Yet another reason for me to cross Ecklie off the Christmas card list this year..."

"Yet another?" Finn asked, intrigued, smirking slightly as she continued, "I sense that this could be a rather long list...What else is on it?"

"You don't want to know." Sara grinned, cradling the hot coffee mug in her hands by the sink as she said, "Is that everything?"

"I think so..." Finn said, scanning the assignment slip for any missed details, "You want to drive?"  
Sara grinned and caught the keys Finn threw her way.

Unable to help herself she asked quietly,

"Do we have an ID on our victim?"

She concealed her expression in the coffee mug as she took another sip of it,

"Yes..." Finn said, consulting the sheet again to double check before saying, "A serial rapist named Adam Trent."

Sara choked on the coffee she had just taken a sip of, spluttering into the sink,

"The coffee's not that bad is it?" Finn asked, adding, "You OK?"

"Yeah..." she choked with streaming eyes, "Just went down the wrong way, that's all."

_Of all the patients..._

"Are you ready to go?" she asked, throwing away the remains of her coffee and heading towards the door,

"Sara, are you OK?" Finn asked, stopping and turning back as she realised she had been telling herself about Adam's schizophrenia.

"Yeah, fine." She replied, anything but, pulling herself from the horrors of her past to exchange them for the recurring nightmares of the present.

They ducked out into the car and headed off towards the hospital. As Finn continued to flick through the reports, getting to know their victim, Sara could not help going over what she already knew about him.

Rolling her shoulders uncomfortably as the skin beneath her thin clothes writhed as though someone had slipped live snakes into it.

Her nerves were rattled and felt as though they were being continually stimulated by a pulse of electricity causing every muscle to contract painfully and causing her extremities to twitch uncontrollably.

Nausea clawed and twisted her stomach, churning the coffee in it and sending hot, acrid bile up her throat, the burning sensation it inspired in her clinging to it.

Her heartbeat became thread and volatile, fluttering in her chest like the wings of a butterfly that had been caught in a storm. Her lungs seemed both to crave oxygen, forcing her to take deep, shaking breaths of it, making her chest expand to the point where it became painful; yet at the same time they despised it, making her rid herself of it too quickly, causing her to teeter on the edge of hyperventilation in her anxiety.

Her hands were slick with the cold swear that had crept up her spine, coating her skin and only intensifying the impulsive tremors that were tormenting her body.

When the rush of images began to flood in front of her eyes however, she pulled into a little in-shot at the side of the road, forcing herself to take a deep, calming breath as she attracted a concerned glance from her colleague,

"You OK?" she asked, resting a gently hand on her wrist and jerking back when the feverish skin beneath her fingers burned her, "Jesus Sara!" she exclaimed,

"I don't think Jesus has much to do with it." She managed to shoot back weakly, "I just feel a little lightheaded that's all...I'll be OK..." she took a deep breath and then added "You mind?" gesturing at the steering wheel and indicating that she wanted the other woman to take over.

"Of course." Finn said, immediately swapping places with her, "Are you sure you're OK? I can drop you back off at the lab and I'll deal with this myself if you want?"  
"NO, no, I just need a minute, I'll be fine by the time we get there." She said as firmly as she could, not intending on letting Finn going there on her own just because she was having a bit of a rough day.

Finn knew better than to argue with the stubborn brunette and started the car again and pulled back out into the steady flow of traffic leaving Vegas.

As they drove, she kept half an eye on her colleague who was doing a _wonderful_ impression of being 'fine'. She was chalk white and drenched in sweat, eyes closed and forcing herself to take, slow breaths.

"A little lightheaded my ass Sara." She said irritably, "I'm telling you, you could be lying in the middle of The Strip with your intestines hanging out and you'll _still _be telling people you were 'fine'. You can't work like this-"

"Leave it alone Finn." She growled, "I can and I will."

"Sara, this is just-"she began insistently,

"Please Finn." She said in a soft voice, her deep brown eyes connecting with the other woman's "Just drop it, please..."

Finn nodded softly and whispered, "OK..."

She could fell his hot, flushed skin pressing against her, the ceramic shard at her throat. She could feel his delight at having her under his complete control and she knew _exactly _what he wanted to do to her next...

Giving herself a little shake and, after drawing a deep breath she began to speak, more as an attempt to distract herself than anything else,

"What else is on the menu for Sin City tonight?"

"Well, Morgan is attending some kind of forensics convention in New York and Russell, Nick and Greg have a double murder at some kind of club just outside Vegas."

"Nice, while we're slumming it in the middle of nowhere." Sara said darkly,

"Yeah." Finn said with a small laugh before saying quietly, "Have you got any experience in this kind of places?"

"A little more than I would like..." Sara replied darkly, her tone implying that she did not want to talk about it.

And she didn't. She could still feel Adam's hands all over her body and had no wish to share that fact with Finn.

"What about you?" she asked quickly to distract from any potential follow-up questions.

"No..." she said with a cheeky, rueful smile, "But I think it could have benefitted my first husband..."

Sara smiled slightly at this as Finn began,

"You know, I think this case could be a straight up suicide..."

"Really? Why?" she asked, not sure if she was going to like where this conversation could potentially end up.

"It says here in the files relating to the victim that he was pathological narcissist, see, I knew my first husband would have fit in here, schizoaffective and suicidal...Now, I'm no expert, but I'm fairly certain that schizoaffective involves the patient having mood swings that can lead to depression and hallucinations, add that in to suicidal...It states in here that he's attempted several times in the past, maybe he succeeded this time."

"How would that tie in with the restraints though?" Sara asked quietly,

"The inmates are placed in the restraints when they're in seclusion." Finn began, "That means that they can't have someone on the room with them watching them all the time, it defeats the purpose. Some of them found ways to expose the sharp corners of the buckles and have been able to use them to slit their wrists. Done right, severs the radial artery, victim bleeds out before the next check up."

"I like your optimism Finn." Sara said with a sad smile, already knowing from bitter past experience that it was not going to be that easy.

"Yeah, if I'm thankful for anything in life, it's my cheery personality." She replied with a wink.

Sara smiled again and Finn glanced towards the files in her lap for a moment, sighing and brushing a strand of hair from her face as she shook her head slightly,

"What's up?" Sara asked softly,

"It just...It feels weird doing something like this, investigating a case like this...This man has raped countless women, and ruined so many lives and yet...Here, he's the victim..."

"The rules change in these places, they don't work in the same way we do." Sara replied in hushed tones,

She knew perfectly well that the same rules didn't exist. Here, those who were convicted felons were allowed to roam around freely and in order to _prevent _violence, were not locked up. Things that would have been unthinkable in their 'dignified society' were common, everyday occurrences. It was not somewhere that she thought she would be able to survive. She was fairly certain that, had she had even a shred of sanity left in her when she had arrived at a place like this it would have been stripped from her within the first week...

Finn watched her carefully as they drove up towards the gates, knowing perfectly well that Sara had more issues with this than she was letting on. Still, she knew better than to push her on them. She valued her safety a little too much for that.

As they drew up to the gates, the guard glanced in a bored way at their identifications before casually waving them on to the premises.

"I think he would let a bus full of playboy bunnies in here if they showed him something that looked semi-decent." Finn muttered, making Sara smile as they drove up to the complex.

Just before they got out of the car, Finn placed a hand on Sara's arm and murmured,

"You alright to do this?"

"I'm fine." She said with a smile and a wink, letting the other woman know she had answered like that deliberately. She was rewarded by a smile as they both clambered from the car. As they walked towards the entrance Sara said playfully,

"And Finn?"

"Yeah?" she said, turning towards her,

"I only intend on saying that once per shift."

Finn smiled, "Deal." She laughed,

Sara forced a smile onto her face as well as they pushed their way into the room and her nostrils were assaulted by the clinical smell of the cold corridors that immediately turned her stomach and made her want to retreat to the safety of the car.

Still, she forced herself to continue and shake the hand of the new hospital administrator, who was just as simpering and insufferable as the last, and take a glance around at the hospital.

First impressions really were everything and hers had not changed at all. Everything about this place was depressingly identical.

The same 'neutral' colour splashed over the walls that made her feel more melancholy than it would have if the entire thing had been painted black. The only difference now was that the paint was peeling, like skin from an aging person, hanging sadly from the walls, the faint chips and cracks in it citing the flaws and imperfections it tried to conceal beneath the veil of politics and insanity but that she could read as well as any fingerprint.

"Ladies, so good of you to come, please, send my regards to Conrad..." the administrator leered at them, shaking their hands in turn as they made introductions,

"Conrad?" Finn mouthed smirking at Sara who buried a grin in response and refocused on the administrator, who was telling them,

"It's a terrible tragedy of course. And we were making such progress with Adam..."

"Progress?" Sara asked, surprised by this dramatic change when the same faded, peeling posters still adorned the walls. "I thought the object of this programme was containment?"

"It was." He said, "But when the hospital changed over into my hands, certain changes began taking place." He said, taking a moment to appreciate his supposed wit, "Anyway, we started talking rehabilitation, trying to actually make actual, noticeable changes to these patients' and see if they can't be reintroduced to the general population at some point..."

"That's got to cost a pretty penny." Finn observed pointedly, "Who fits the bill?"

The administrator stared at her as though she had grown an extra head while Sara smiled, being thrown cold into the world of Finn took a little adaptation, she was a lot to get used to.

"Well, this is a state run facility...We receive, ah, donations from the patients' families..." he blustered, flushing and looking away from her.

Sara and Finn exchanged a glance but neither of them commented on this as they were led around the corner and introduced to one of the nurses,

"This is Margaret Fisher." He told them formally, "She found the victim." "Margaret, this is Sara Sidle and Julie Finaly, they're with the Las Vegas Crime Lab."

"Maggie." She said in a lightly accented voice, raising an eyebrow at the administrator's formality and rolling her eyes slightly, "Nice to meet you both."

"And you." Finn said smiling, the little grimace not going unnoticed, "I found him about an hour ago. I was just coming in and I was told there was a patient in the seclusion room, I went to check on him...I found him dead." She said quietly, "Would you like to see the room?"

"Please." Finn said, allowing her to lead the way.

"It's just through here." She said, leading them down another corridor, to the left and then up towards the end,

They were just about to enter the room when an uncertain voice called them all back, saying, surprised,

"Sara?"

She, along with Finn and Nurse Fisher, turned in response to the low, enigmatic voice. She felt her eyes widen as the words spilled from her lips without thought,

"What are you doing here?"


	2. A Scandal In Deliria

**Chapter 2**

Finn glanced over at Sara, one eyebrow raised by Sara only had eyes for the other woman who had unwittingly strayed into their midst.

"Heather..." she said in a strained voice, asking again when her first question was met with a shocked silence, "What are you doing here?"

"The same thing as you I would imagine." She replied quietly, studying Sara intently as they spoke. In response to the other woman's unimpressed raised eyebrow, she crossed her arms defensively over her chest and said, "I heard about Adam's death. I came to find out what happened."

"My question was more directed at a general thing. Why are you _here_ at all?" Sara pressed firmly,

"I work here at the hospital." She replied evenly, when Sara gaped at her she added, "On a part-time basis."

"What?" Sara asked with a small smirk, "The idea of rekindling failing marriages by playing dress-up lost its appeal?"

"No." Heather replied curtly, a slight edge tinging her voice now in response to the other woman's questioning, "That's why this is only 'part-time'.

Sara nodded, still not entirely convinced about this. There had to be a bigger reason as to why Heather had decided to travel all the way out to the hospital in the dead of night.

She and Finn both looked into the room, studying it and their victim carefully. They both glanced at each other simultaneously, sharing the same thoughts,

"Something is off about this." Sara murmured quietly,

"Yeah..." Finn said, turning back "I mean, no matter how suicidal I was, if I had just sliced my wrists open on a piece of sharp metal, body's natural instinct is to fight back, to struggle..."

Sara nodded, "Which would have meant struggling against those restraints and, padded or not, that's going to leave a mark."

At this point, Finn turned back round to Maggie and asked, "Was Adam sedated before he was left in here?"

"I would assume so, yes." She replied, "If you like, there should be records somewhere..."

"Yeah, could you dig those out for us?" Finn broke in, smiling,

"Yes, I think that would be OK..." Maggie said, a little thrown by how forward the other woman was, "Come on, I'll take you back to the nurse's station. They should really be in here but it's been a crazy night."

"Isn't every night?" Finn asked as she turned to look back at Sara before following Maggie, "That OK with you?

"Sure." She said, adding with a small smile, "I'll just do a little preliminary, take some basic shots until you can get back to your blood."

"Thank you." Finn said, smiling and winking at the other woman's understanding before heading off after Maggie.

As Sara began to quietly walk around the edges of the room, deciding to photograph blood and anything else on the outside of the room and then work in to Adam's body, she became increasingly aware that she was being watched.

She was about to turn around and comment on this when Heather told her quietly,

"You're not wearing your wedding ring anymore Sara."

"No, I'm also not wearing the same perfume anymore either, would you like to comment on that as well?" she bit back angrily without looking up,

She was in no mood to start playing Sherlock with the ex-dominatrix. Her nerves were shaken-up enough as they were and Heather standing causally in the door-way casting aspersions over her personal life was doing nothing for her blood-pressure.

"Look, Sara-"Heather said, with the air of someone dropping the pretence,

"No, no I don't want you to 'look' into anything to do with me." She told her flatly, noting several blood drops on the floor beneath the victim's right arm, potentially indicating that he had attempted with that wrist first and been successful with the second owing to the much larger pool on the other side.

"Not even Grissom?" Heather asked softly and pointedly, studying the other woman with her unsettling intensity as she spoke,

"Especially not Grissom." Sara retorted coldly,

"Sara, I am a sex therapist, I could help-"

"No, no I don't think you could." Sara snapped derisively,

"Why?" Heather pressed gently,

"It's a little late for that now don't you think?" Sara muttered, turning on her, eyes blazing, telling her in no uncertain terms to drop it.

"No, no I don't..." Heather continued, Sara turned away from her again, continuing to move around the room, noting the faint trace of blood on the catch of the window that had been nailed shut as Heather continued, "I _can _help you Sara."

"And why would _you _want to do that?" she spat, whipping back round to face her, studying the other woman in turn,

"It's not what you think Sara." She told her quietly, "Grissom and me...It would never have worked."

"Why? Because you're more of a cat person?" Sara shot back sardonically, continuing to move around the room,

"No. Because his attentions were always held by someone else." She answered quietly, "Even from our first meeting I could see that. It was always just a pity it took him as long as it did..." Sara did not answer, being distracted by the drawers of medical equipment, drugs, needles and syringes. "I understand him Sara." She pressed urgently,

"Maybe. But you don't understand me." She answered quietly,

"Maybe not, but I do understand the way you feel about him and the way he feels about you."

"_I _don't understand how he feels about me right now." She snapped defensively showing more of her cards than she had intended in her anger, "How can you?"

"He called me Sara." She said quietly, sending a lead weight into the other woman's stomach as she continued, "He told me what happened-"

"Congratulations." Sara hissed icily, turning to look back at the other woman with cold eyes as she said, "Now what do you want from me?"

"I want to help you Sara." She said softly,

"If you really want to 'help' me, then you can just answer my questions and then go."

"Alright..." she said slowly, crossing her arms over her chest once more as she watched the slim brunette, "What do you want to know?"

"Why are you here?" Sara asked, repeating her question from earlier, "Why the special interest in this particular inmate? Things like this happen on a weekly basis here, you know that."

"I had a personal interest in Adam." Heather replied smoothly, "I was his therapist."

"_You _were counselling Adam Trent?" Sara asked, genuinely thrown by this little twist, "Why?"

"The hospital almost became partially private." She began to explain evenly, "Families of the patients could make..._Contributions_ towards them receiving individual treatment in an effort to make a more dramatic change in their mental health."

"And they contacted _you_?" Sara asked disbelievingly.

"It was a mutual connection." Heather replied, "For anyone interested in any field of science, individuals that buck the trend; that exist outside that monotonous bell-curve of normality are always interesting, exciting. They are discrepancies; naturally I was drawn to a place like this."

"Naturally." Sara repeated, a faint edge of sarcasm in her voice, "How many of the inmates here were you 'drawn' to exactly?"

"Just one. Adam was my only case here."

"So why Adam?" Sara asked softly, "Why him in particular?"

"He _intrigued _me." She purred softly, the hint of the dominatrix shining through the composed, professional mask of the psychologist, "He was something new, something exciting and complicated. I love complex challenging men."

"And why are you here now?" Sara asked smoothly, fighting to keep her composure, "It's a little late for your challenges isn't it?"

"I had a session with Adam tonight." Heather replied lightly,

"Was it normal for you to meet at this time?" Sara asked pointedly,

"It wasn't abnormal." Heather replied infuriatingly,

"Did _anything _happen in tonight's session that you think may be relevant to this case?" Sara asked quietly,

"What are you attributing this to?" Heather asked, glancing around the room and taking in its features as opposed to Sara's, "Suicide?"

"You know I can't tell you that Heather." Sara replied, who, at that moment in time, had no idea what she was attributing this to.

Sighing, she said, "If you're thinking suicide, I would say so...Adam was making improvements but..." She hesitated a moment before continuing, "He was schizoaffective, meaning that he frequently suffered from violent mood swings, either up or down, at the moment, he was down. That tended to intensify the suicidal thoughts. If you had asked me last week it would have been a different story, but now..."

"Do you know what happened with Adam to have him sent to seclusion?"

Heather hesitated a moment before answering, "No. We had finished our session; I was on my way back to Vegas."

Sara could not pinpoint why that statement felt off to her and so she decided to leave it alone for the moment.

"Alright..." she said quietly, "I think I have everything I need. Thank you."

Heather paused a moment before turning and making to leave.

Unable to stop herself, Sara murmured,

"Heather?" Just as she was leaving,

She turned back to look at the brunette and said, "Yes?"

Sara hesitated, fumbling over her words as she asked quietly, her pride and her need to know resulting in a silent, internal conflict, "You said you had spoken to him?"

"Yes..." Heather replied quietly, seeming to sense that this was a delicate area, "He called me shortly after your break-up...He needed someone to talk to."

"How..." she began, faltering before forcing herself to ask the question she needed to know, "How did he sound?"

"...Hurt." Heather replied sadly before turning and leaving the broken brunette crouched on the floor beside an empty syringe staring after her, the same emotion stirring in her deep eyes.

"Heather? Right?" Finn said, accosting the other woman at the nurse's station on her way out,

"Kessler. Doctor." She said by which of introduction smiling and dancing around Finn's gloved hand,

"Julie Finlay. Finn." She replied with a small grin, "I hate to have to do this but, did you have access to the room the victim was found in?"

"In theory yes. If you have access to this hospital you have access to just about anywhere. It's a locked unit so they saw no reason to have cages within the cages. The inmates are generally free to roam, as are the staff."

"Alright then, could I ask you to provide me some exemplars of your prints and DNA so I can rule them out?" Heather hesitated, not looking thrilled by this prospect, "I can get a warrant." Finn pointed out evenly, "But that will mean me leaving and coming back and having to track you down, all of which takes time and this is a time sensitive business. If you really want to help find Adam's killer, you'll just give them to me now."

"Alright. Take whatever you need." Heather told her,

"Thank you Doctor." Finn said, setting her kit down and removing a swab, "So, you and Sara know each other?" she asked lightly,

"Our paths crossed on a previous case." Heather replied smoothly,

"Are you sure that's all it is?" Finn asked quietly,

"What are you implying?" Heather asked coolly,

"Look, I'm no expert, but there seemed to be more than just 'path-crossing' between you and Sara earlier." Finn said who for one had not missed the sparks that had flown between both women outside the victim's room.

"Perhaps." Heather said, affording her a small laugh, "But if you want to know details you'll have to ask Sara."

Finn chortled at that, "Yeah, you have a lion's mouth I can stick my head into first?"

Heather laughed more genuinely at that, "You have a point there...She's..."

"Yeah..." Finn said, smiling warmly, "She's great though." She worked for another few moments before saying, "Well thank you, I'm done, you can get on your way now."

"Thanks." Heather said, bending to collect the bag she had set on the table next to them and turning to leave, Finn's eyes following her off the premises.

"What did you get?" Sara asked as Finn re-entered the room, "Many things." Finn replied winking, "Firstly, Adam Trent's records of his time in seclusion, nothing as to _why_ but it did tell me with what. He was injected with lorazepam following a psychotic episode."

"Enough to prevent suicide?"

"He would have been groggy and disoriented but he was in here alone for about three hours, he had time."

"Where there's a will there's a way..." Sara murmured darkly, "What else did you get?"

"Exemplars of fingerprints and DNA to use for elimination, including your friend Dr. Kessler." She paused a moment, glancing around the room, "What about you? Any joy?"

"Yes and no." She replied with a sigh, "I found a bloody fingerprint on the bed beside Adam. I've emailed it to Mandy, see if she can get a hit...That's about the only clear-cut thing I've found...We're going to be here for a while."

"OK...So let's take it one step at a time. What's the blood telling you?"

"You want me to lay it out?" she asked raising an eyebrow, "I thought you were a little possessive over your blood."

"Usually." She said, smiling, "I trust you. Go for it, what do you see?"

Smiling, Sara began, "Dead people...And the things that made them so..." Finn smirked at this as she took a deep breath and moved around to stand by the bed Adam's body was tied to, "Blood drops under the right wrist indicate that he was equal opportunities when it came to this, he broke the skin on that wrist but hit a goldmine on the left, success, as indicated by that helpful blood pool."

"Yes..." Finn murmured, studying the blood as she listened to Sara's theory, "Succeeded in catching an artery, I'll give you. Succeeding in killing himself? I don't think so. That blood pool's not nearly big enough to indicate a fatal wound."

"My thoughts exactly, which is when I stumbled across _this_." She said, crossing the room and indicating the blood spatter in the corner, "High velocity, less than a millimetre in diameter."

"Indicative of a gunshot wound." Finn said, eyes flashing, intrigued now.

Sara moved back towards Adam Trent, allowing Finn to have a closer look at the blood spatter that adorned the walls, something on his body distracted her as Finn began to absently theorise,

"So...Clearly a separate event from the slashed wrists but the question now becomes is it Adam's blood or are we looking at another victim?"

"My money's on Adam's." Sara said quietly from beside his body,

"Really?" Finn asked, turning to look at her, "Cite your source."

"The hole in his chest." Sara answered, grinning,

"What?" Finn asked, moving over to join her,

Sara pulled a torch from her kit and shone the sharp beam under one of the chest restraints showing the blood and the rent in the skin from whence it came, raising her eye brows.

Finn gently slid two fingers under the restraint in an attempt to get a better look at the wound, only to find that the strap lifted cleanly and easily away from her victim,

"What the Hell?" she murmured, staring first at the loose strap and then up at Sara who noticed that the strap had not been fastened down properly to the other side of the bed, "This wouldn't even restrain a sumo wrestler, never mind a twig like Adam..."

"_What _is going on here?" Sara asked wonderingly.

"OK, so, we have a patient with a gunshot wound and slashed wrists and loose restraints...I would say that someone is trying to make this look like something it's not." Finn said, taking a deep breath and beginning to lay things out, "So, either Adam killed himself and had help..."

"Or he was murdered and we're looking at a homicide." Sara said softly,

"OK...So, let's go on the theory he was shot first, and, for the point of keeping things simple, let's say that he shot himself..."

"But then why didn't he die on the floor? Why in bed with the restraints on?" Sara continued, picking up the thread where Finn left off. She paused a moment, pacing around the room before answering her own question, "Because he was moved...Someone hears the shot, comes running, finds Adam bleeding out on the floor."

"Right, and after the complaints this hospital has under its belt, that would not look good for them. Whoever it is, gets Adam up, maybe tries to clean him up a little, leads him over to the bed and tries to make it look like he killed himself using the restraints."

"OK..." Sara said slowly, "If that was the case, why wouldn't they clean up after themselves?"

"Maybe they were interrupted." Finn suggested, "The marks on the floor indicate that this blood pool was much bigger. But if I am whoever is covering this up, my own safety takes precedence over the hospital."

"So if I heard someone coming I wouldn't stick around and make myself into suspect number one, I would the Hell out of here." Sara said, nodding,

"Turning the lights off to try and dissuade anyone from checking in the near future."Finn added, explaining Maggie's earlier discrepancy.

"Interruption would explain the hasty clean-up and the loose restraints..."

"But not the lorazepam...A dose that high, he should not have been standing when he was shot..."

"OK...Let's go with something we _do_ know..." Sara suggested, "If there was a gunshot, there was a gun."

"And going with our theory of interruption, it's probably still here..." Finn said quietly. She walked back over the corner of the room where Adam shot himself and turned back to Sara, purring, her voice mockingly flirtatious, "Would you like to play victim?"

Smiling at the irony of this, on several counts, one of them rather unsettling, Sara consented, lying carefully on the floor and allowing Finn to use blood pools to match the positions.

"Alright..." Sara said from her position on the floor, "If I was Adam and I had just shot myself...If the gun was in my left hand, it would be under there..." she said, gesturing to a little cupboard that was sitting flat on the floor, making that impossible, "If I shot myself with my right hand..." she continued, flipping over, "It would be under there..."

Finn fished a torch from her own kit and looked under the tray Sara indicated. She shook her head slowly, "Nothing..."

"Well guns don't just get up off the floor and fly away by themselves..." Sara murmured,

"No they do not..." Finn said, crouching down beside Sara and pressing her knuckles to her lips as she pondered this. Tilting her head, she squinted uncertainly at something,

"What's up?" Sara asked, noting the expression that was instantly familiar to every criminalist.

"One of the trays in that holder doesn't fit properly, it's not sitting right..." she said slowly, getting up to examine it. Sara sat up on the floor as Finn slid it open and let out a small, triumphant laugh. She took several, hasty shots of the contents and then held them up to show Sara,

"One murder weapon."

Sara shook her head and massaged her eyes saying, "Right, forget for a minute whether he killed himself or was killed or how he ended up back on the bed. How the Hell did he manage to shoot himself? Guns are not just left lying around here. How did it end up with him?"

Before Finn could answer she checked her phone and looked up at Sara saying, "I don't think you should be asking _how_ but potentially _who_..."

"What have you got?" Sara asked,

"Mandy matched the bloody print you found on Adam's bed to one of the exemplars that I sent her."

"Really?" Sara asked, curiously, "Who?"

"Heather." Finn replied grimly.


End file.
